Kansas Troubles (24 page)

I felt him stir next to me.

“I know this probably doesn’t mean much to you now,” he said. With his back to me, his voice sounded far away, as if he were calling over a great canyon. “But I love you.”

Feeling as mean as I ever have in my life and hating myself for doing it, I bit my trembling lip and didn’t answer.

“COULD YOU DROP me off over at Otis’s?” I asked Gabe the next day as I stood at the kitchen sink washing the breakfast dishes.

“There’s no need for you to do those,” Kathryn said.

“I want to,” I insisted, thinking, You may not think I’m the perfect mate for your son, and for all I know you might be right, but I sure as heck am not going to give you a reason to call me lazy.

“I thought you were going to help Becky with Tyler’s things,” Gabe said, not even trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“Not until this afternoon.”

His feelings were written all over his face. He opened his mouth to say something. Before he could get the words out, I said, “I’m going to help her. No discussion.” He and his mother glanced at each other. I turned back to the sink and scrubbed furiously at the coffee-stained mug in my hand. Fine, I thought, the two of you can just sit and exchange disapproving looks all day. “So, what time is the rodeo tonight?”

“Eight o’clock,” Gabe said, his voice as tart as a green apple. “We need to leave by six. Pretty Prairie’s about sixty-five miles away.”

I turned around and gave him and Kathryn a big smile. “Well, if I’m not back in time, go ahead without me. I’ll catch a ride with Becky.”

“Fine,” Gabe said, retreating behind his morning
Wichita Eagle
.

“Will you be home in time for supper?” Kathryn asked. Her stern face looked worried. For a moment, I felt a small stab of sympathy. She loved Gabe and was probably just not sure if I was the right person for him. Well, Mrs. Ortiz, take a number.

“I don’t know,” I said, rinsing off the last plate and wedging it in the white plastic dish drainer. “But don’t worry about me. You know rodeos. They always have lots of junk food. I’ll be fine.”

I was drying my hands with a white flour-sack tea towel when the phone rang. Kathryn answered it, then held it out to me.

“A gentleman is asking for you,” she said. Gabe lowered the paper and watched me with that irritatingly blank look on his face.

I took the phone, wondering what man would be calling me at Kathryn’s and why. When I heard the voice at the other end, I almost hung up.

“It’s not my fault,” my uncle Arnie whined. “I swear, Benni, it’s not my—” I heard someone grappling for the phone, and then my father’s deep baritone bellowed through the line.

“I swear this time I’m going to strangle her,” he said. “I’m going to have her committed. I’m going to send her to live with Garnet. This takes the cake. This is the last nail in the keg. This is the straw that—”

“Broke the camel’s back,” I finished. “I know, I know. Enough of the hysterical homilies. What in the heck is going on?”

“She’s
your
grandmother.”

“Your grandmother,” Arnie echoed in the background.

Somewhere in the miles between California and Kansas, it had slipped their minds that she was
their
mother before she was my grandmother.

I sighed and leaned against the wall, giving Gabe and his mother a perfunctory smile. What did it matter now what Kathryn thought about me or my family? There was no avoiding the inevitable, no whitewashing the truth. She would find out sooner or later that her son had married into a certifiably, Looney-Tunes-has-nothing-on-us nutso Southern family—Lord have mercy on his poor, bland Midwestern soul.

“What’s she done now?” I asked. Hearing his voice reminded me that I needed to call Shepler’s and check on the progress of his hat.

“Done? She’s done gone, is what she is!”

“Gone? As in gone to the bathroom, gone to lunch, gone to—”

“As in gone for good,” Daddy said.

I straightened up and yelled into the phone. “What? She’s not—” My head started to get light, and stars sparkled in front of my eyes. Was this my father’s awkward way of telling me . . . ?

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Daddy said. “She’s not dead. She up and left us. Left nothing but a note with the motel clerk. Said she’d meet us in Derby Saturday after.”

I took a deep breath. By now Gabe had gotten up and was standing next to me, his face furrowed with worry. I held up one finger and mouthed, Just a minute.

“Daddy,” I said patiently, “calm down and tell me what happened. Slowly. From the beginning. First, where are you?”

“At the Yellow Rose of Texas Motel and Truckateria.”

“Where’s that?”

“ ’Bout a mile outside the town of Old Dime Box.”

“Where in the heck is Old Dime Box?”

“Near the town of Dime Box.” He chuckled. In the background, I heard Arnie chuckling too. If there were a way to reach through these phone wires and knock their two heads together . . .

“And where’s Dime Box?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“Texas. Anyway, we woke up and knocked on her door. When she didn’t answer, we figured she was at the coffee shop that’s attached to the motel. But she wasn’t, and so we went back to the room and knocked again. ’Course, by this time we was gettin’ a little bit worried, so we walked around the grounds a little bit, and then Arnie almost stepped on a rattler, ignorant fool that he is—”

“Daddy.” I broke into his monologue before it turned into one of the long, convoluted tales our family is known for. “Just tell me where she is.”

“According to the motel clerk, she took off with Brother Dwaine.”

“Who?”

“Brother Dwaine Porter Wilburn. Apparently he’s some kind of travelin’ preacher to truckers or something. He’s got himself one of them big rigs, a brand new Peterbilt, and goes all around the country preachin’ in a church he has in the back. Even has the Lord’s Supper back there. He was once a trucker himself; then he decided that God was calling him to minister out on the road. His truck is painted white with a big blue dove on it.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about this guy,” I said suspiciously.

“Oh, we met him last night when we were having supper in the cafe. He and your gramma hit it off like a ball of fire. He seemed like a nice enough fella.” In the course of our conversation, Daddy had managed to talk himself into thinking everything was peachy-keen.

“Daddy, he’s a perfect stranger and he has Dove!”

“Now, pumpkin, he’s not a perfect stranger.” My father’s voice took on the cajoling tone he used whenever he knew he’d really blown it. “We did meet him, and Amos Bob says he’s on the up and up. Has himself a regular route. Amos Bob says he’s been through here dozens of times.”

“Who’s Amos Bob?” This was beginning to sound like a bad episode of
The Dukes of Hazzard
.

“Amos Bob Carter. Owns the Yellow Rose Cafe here. No relation to Jimmy, but get a load of his initials—ABC. Ain’t that somethin’?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Really something. Now, about Dove—”

“It’ll be all right, Benni. I’ve already got that figured out. Amos Bob says all we got to do is listen to the CB, that the Reverend Dwaine’s always trying to convert someone on it. We’ll find her.”

“You’d better,” I snapped. “Do you realize what could happen? You know, if you and Arnie would just quit squabbling like teenagers . . .”

“She stomped on my good hat and then she threw it away,” Daddy said. “And just for the record, young lady, this is your daddy you’re talking to. I’ll be asking for a little more respect than you’re giving.”

“Don’t even think about showing up without her,” I said and hung up.

“What’s going on?” Gabe asked, his face sober, but his eyes twinkling, having caught the gist of the conversation. He’d tangled with Dove himself, and he was no doubt thanking his lucky stars this skirmish didn’t involve him.

“You heard,” I snapped. “My grandmother is running amuck with a truck-driving evangelist she’s known for two hours, and Daddy and Arnie, doing their Three-Stooges-minus-one act, are trying to find her via the truckers’ CB network. Just another uneventful day with the Ramsey clan. Excuse me.” I turned and left, tears burning my eyes. I was in the bedroom pulling on my boots when Gabe appeared in the doorway.

“Is there anything you want me to do about Dove?” he asked gently. He knew me well enough to know I was really afraid for her safety.

“Unless you can put out an all-points bulletin, I guess not.”

“She’s an adult, and though you doubt it sometimes, completely sane and rational,” he said. “Unless there’s some reason to believe she’s being held against her will, we really can’t do anything.”

“I know.” I leaned over and rested my head on my knees. His large hand stroked my hair, and I almost gave in to the sob swelling like a balloon in my chest. I sat up and moved out of his reach. No matter what was going on with Dove, that didn’t change things between Gabe and me. “Can you take me to Otis’s now?”

“Sure,” he said, pulling his hand back abruptly, his voice cool. As was becoming our habit these days, we didn’t speak during the ten-minute drive. “See you tonight” was all he said when I climbed out in the farmhouse driveway. He waved to Otis, who watched our grim faces from his front porch.

Otis greeted me with an easy smile, not commenting on my troubled expression. He took me into the barn, pointed out where he kept the tack, and with great kindness and wisdom left me alone. I stood for a moment inhaling the comforting smell of horse, straw, and leather, then gradually lost myself in the familiar routine of grooming. I cleaned each of Sinful’s hooves with the thoroughness of a new horse-lover and brushed his coat until it gleamed. The extra attention seemed to agree with him. If he’d been a cat, he would have probably purred. For the next two hours, I completely avoided thoughts of Gabe, Dove, murder, and Kansas, and just worked with Sinful. He was a lively, strong horse with excellent timing and a real desire to please once he realized you were the boss. By the time the sun was directly overhead and the humidity was at the point where I knew it was dangerous to keep working, Sinful and I were both sweaty and tired and ready for a break. I spent another hour giving him a bath and cleaning him up. I was a happy mess when I walked out of the barn.

Otis got up from his rocking chair on the front porch and called to me. “Got lunch ready if you’re hungry.”

“Absolutely,” I said enthusiastically, bounding up the steps. I followed him into the old farmhouse kitchen where he had set two places for lunch. The faded calico-patterned wallpaper and gingham curtains made me feel as though I’d stepped back in time and was seeing the kitchen as it was in the thirties.

“You know,” he said, setting a platter of tuna on white bread sandwiches on the round claw-foot table, “you’re a lot prettier when you’re smiling.”

“You know,” I said, taking a sandwich and grinning, “you’re only getting away with such a chauvinistic remark because you’re so much older than me.”

He gave a deep belly laugh and set a carton of store-bought macaroni salad and a big bag of barbecue potato chips in front of me. “You’re right.”

We talked easily about Sinful and what I’d done with the horse that morning, and then somehow Otis steered the conversation around to Gabe and his dad.

“Rogelio was my best friend,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “But he was a hardheaded son of a gun. He and Gabe used to get in some hair-raising fights. Especially after Gabe became a teenager. I’m here to tell you, I stood between those two many times. That’s because Gabe was as stubborn as his pa. Loyal, though. Those Ortiz men are loyal as the day is long.”

I murmured a vague reply, attempting to discourage his reminiscing. Before, I would have tried to add these pieces to the puzzle that was my husband, but I was tired of hearing his life through other people’s words. I wanted to hear about Gabe and his dad, but I wanted to hear it from Gabe.

“Have the police been back out here?” I asked, pushing around the remains of the macaroni salad on my plate.

“They were in and out about a dozen times those first few days, but I think they’re done now.”

“Who do you think did it?”

“To tell you the truth, I never much liked that Rob Harlow. Spoiled brat since he was a young’un.”

“So you think he did it?”

“I didn’t say that. Just said I never liked him.” Otis grinned at me and stuck his pipe between his teeth.

In other words, he didn’t want to speculate. Well, I couldn’t blame him. He’d known these people since they were kids. “Are you ever going to light that thing?” I asked, laughing.

He took the pipe out of his mouth and looked at it as if surprised to see it was there. “This old thing? Land sake’s, no. Doc Bradley made me quit smoking ten years ago. This here’s just for looks. The ladies down at the senior citizen center say it gives me a certain air.” He brushed the air around him as if something smelled bad. “Reckon that’s a compliment or you think they’re trying to tell me something?”

A few minutes later Becky called. “Said she’ll meet you out front in ten minutes,” Otis told me. He walked me out to the yard. “You make sure and come back now. Old Sinful’s gotten used to being rode, and we don’t want to disappoint him.”

“I’ll come again soon as I can.”

As we walked past the barn, he touched my elbow. “I want to show you something. See what you think.” I followed him around the back of the barn to a small garage-like building with dusty windows. He slid the door open and beckoned me to follow him. It was an auto mechanic’s dream. Obviously this was where he kept all the tools from the garage he and Gabe’s dad had owned. A vehicle was parked inside, a stiff new tarp thrown over it.

“I’ve been working on this old thing for a while now.” He pulled the tarp off the vehicle and stood back. For a moment I was speechless.